Volume 2, Issue 9, September 2003

Letter From the Editor

Welcome to the first HTML edition of smart.sex.talk., the newsletter from www.smartsextalk.com! The past month has been a busy one for us. The new site launched to overwhelmingly positive response - thank you all for your support! Visitors can find all the information available on the old site, as well as some new articles, easy access to newsletter archives, and an online store. We urge you to use the listed resources and to support sex-positive establishments like our affiliates Libida and Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium.

Another change you may have noticed is the name of this newsletter. Hot Topics served us well, but with the site relaunch we decided to cut to the chase and give you what you want: smart.sex.talk. Starting next month, look for smart.sex.talk. in the "From:" field of your incoming email. I am in the middle of a cross-country move, which is why you are receiving this newsletter early, and in its current sparse condition. Over the course of the next few months, we will be supplying our subscribers with a host of new newsletter features. Look for opinion polls, links of the month, and recommended readings, to name a few.

As always, please do write and let me know what new features you would like to see in the newsletter, or on the site.

~Editor

Upcoming Appearances

Dr Ren will be offering a presentation on courtship, From Hello to Good Morning, at the Love That Works Conference in Seattle, Washington, on Saturday, October 18th. The conference runs for three days, Oct 17, 18, and 19th. It promises to be packed with practical and entertaining information about many forms of human relationships, from monogamy to polyamory and beyond.

Details about the conference can be found at http://www.lovethatworks.org/conference.html

Hot Topic: Masturbation and Sexual Health

A well known piece of advice from urologists for men with recurring or chronic prostatitis and/or who might be at increased risk of developing prostate cancer is to have more ejaculations by masturbating.

From the New Scientist Print Edition (16 July 03):

“It will make you go blind. It will make your palms grow hairy. Such myths about masturbation are largely a thing of the past. But the latest research has even better news for young men: frequent self-pleasuring could protect against the most common kind of cancer.

A team in Australia led by Graham Giles of The Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne asked 1079 men with prostate cancer to fill in a questionnaire detailing their sexual habits, and compared their responses with those of 1259 healthy men of the same age. The team concludes that the more men ejaculate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer….”

To read the entire article, go to:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993942

Masturbation is perhaps the singular sexual activity in which almost all of us participate and about which almost none of us speak. It wears a shroud of shame and silence. Many believe it is an infantile activity, to be replaced with the more ‘mature’ intercourse as soon as adulthood is reached. Masturbation guru Dr Betty Dodson has this to say about masturbation:

“Sex will change throughout your life. After hot, romantic sex, there will be the sweetness of early married sex, the mystical quality of procreative sex, and the comfort—or boredom—of long-term monogamous sex. Most of you will get divorced and have another phase of hot romantic sex, and run the cycle again. Those of you who are lesbian or gay will follow a similar pattern. A few of you might go on to explore sex in depth, getting beyond conventional sex roles and labels, and experiencing bisexual threesomes and group sex. But take note! The most consistent sex will be your love affair with yourself. Masturbation will get you through childhood, puberty, romance, marriage, and divorce, and it will see you through old age.”

How fortuitous that the Giles study now reinforces the value of masturbation. Regardless of our societal attitudes, we must now admit that regular self-pleasuring ensures good prostate health. We’ve known since the 1940s, when Dr. Alfred Kegel developed pubococcygeal (PC) muscle exercises to counteract incontinence in middle-aged women, that PC muscle strength also enhances women’s orgasmic response. In other words, masturbation is good for all humans, at all stages of life. Research now confirms that our genitor-urinary health depends upon it.

Perhaps we shrink from embracing masturbation because we believe we are not entitled to sexual pleasure unless someone else gives it to us, thus relieving us of personal responsibility. This excuse explains not using safer sex techniques, poor judgment in our sexual behaviour, and a host of interpersonal miscommunications. Many unnecessarily forego the gratification of vibrators and other sex toys to protect their partners’ egos. Such unnecessary inhibitions!

Masturbation is natural, normal, and (now we know) healthy. Almost all of us do it. We need, as responsible sexually-aware people, to stifle our shyness and talk with our partners about this most basic and universal of sexual behaviours. Urinary continence, prostate health, and lifelong pleasure…it really should be an easy sell, don’t you think?

Humour

Miss Adams was explaining multi-syllable words to her third- grade class. "You all know single-syllable words like hand, foot, house, and dog, but some words are made up of more than one syllable," she said. "Now who can give me an example of a word made up of MORE than one syllable."

Little Johnnie raised his hand eagerly.

"All right, Johnnie, go ahead," smiled Miss Adams.

"Autoeroticism," beamed little Johnnie.

"My goodness, Johnnie, that's a mouthful," marveled Miss Adams.

"No, Miss Adams, that's masturbation," explained Johnnie. "You're thinking of a blowjob."